In Theory: Should the Washington National Cathedral be open to different faiths?

On a Friday afternoon earlier this month, a section of the Washington National Cathedral was reserved for the first-ever gathering of Muslims in the sanctuary, there for their weekly recitation of prayers. According to the Washington Post, the Very Rev. Gary Hall, dean of the cathedral who had helped arrange for the service to promote religious tolerance, said he “hoped the service would serve as the start of more efforts to work together for good.” Although security was tight for the event, one heckler turned up, decrying the use of the cathedral by Muslims. The day before, the Rev. Franklin Graham, who heads the Billy Graham Evangelistic Assn. had made a Facebook post in which he wrote about the event that it was “sad to see a church open its doors to worship of anything other than the One True God of the Bible.” The critics’ sentiments resonated with some Americans, but not with others.

Oh, no. Oh, Hell, no! I was glad that the leader of the National Cathedral reached out to Muslims. All Christians and all Jews and all Muslims should reach out to each other. Franklin Graham is a first-class (curse word, curse word!), and I can’t tell you how narrow I think his views are. By the time anybody reads this, our Community Thanksgiving Service will be over, and in that service that we (the Glendale Religious Leaders Assn.) put on every year at this time, Christians and Jews and Muslims come together to thank God for all our blessings. We even make an effort to read each other’s holy writings. For example, I might do a reading from the Koran, or a Jew might read a portion of the New Testament. We also try to include the Baha’i community and also the Buddhists. You know, Thanksgiving is the ONE holiday on which we can all agree! And I thank my Jewish brothers and sisters as well as my Muslim brothers and sisters for joyfully participating in this event. The Mormons jump in, too, and so do Armenian Christians. It’s a great opportunity to worship together as free Americans of many different faiths. The service this year was on Nov. 20 at the First Baptist Church of Glendale, but we have gathered at my church in La Cañada in years past as well as the Methodist Church in Glendale and at Glendale’s Temple Sinai (at that service a Mormon gave the sermon!) and at the Mormon church in Glendale. It really is a great opportunity for all of us from different faiths to get together and to thank the one true God for all our blessings. As for Franklin Graham and people of his ilk, what does he do with the story of the Good Samaritan, that parable told by Jesus in which an outsider is the true hero, the truly compassionate one? What does he do with that passage in scripture of Jesus dying on the cross, the time he tells his disciple John to take care of his mother? Jesus right there stretches our small concept of what “family” is. “Son, behold thy mother. Mother, behold thy son.” They weren’t blood-related — but after those words of Jesus, they were “family.” Read the gospels again, Franklin, and meet Jesus again for the first time! Happy Thanksgiving, everybody, and be kind to those who are different from you, won’t you? Don’t be like Franklin!

The Rev. Skip Lindeman
La Cañada Congregational Church
La Cañada Flintridge

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Ordinarily “National” and “Cathedral” juxtaposed would concern me, however I have been to this magnificent edifice and know that it is not a U.S. government building.

More important is that again this week grisly events have overtaken our question, with five Jewish worshippers in a Jerusalem synagogue killed by terrorists, making 11 Israelis killed by Palestinians and four Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces this month.

I include these numbers not because there is any justifying this tit-for-tat, but to remind us of the unrelenting carnage.

In his sermon at the Cathedral Muslim scholar Ebrahim Rasool declared “it is not a time for platitudes,” then issued one of his own: Believers must be a “middle ground” to counter the “mischief” that is threatening the world.

Until every religious person on earth gets off the middle ground, stands up and says to an ISIS beheader, “You are not a Muslim” and to an Israeli soldier killing Palestinian children, “You are not a Jew,” the carnage will continue.

The protester at the service who shouted out that “America was founded on Christian principles,” which it certainly was not, is part of the problem too, as is Rev. Franklin Graham declaring that the National Cathedral should be used to worship only the “One true God of the Bible.”

It is beyond offensive to me that the Middle East’s self-inflicted suffering, in which we are stupidly entangled, is perpetrated in service of stories that, though they include real historic figures such as Jesus and Mohamed, are at heart fantasies whose central figure is an imaginary being.

Roberta Medford
Atheist
Montrose

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I have no concerns whatsoever, only delight — and pride in Gary Hall, a former rector of my own St. George’s Episcopal Church in La Cañada. Good for him, and good for America!

The cathedral’s website proclaims that “Washington National Cathedral is called to serve as the spiritual home for the nation.… Artwork and exhibits tell the American story of faith.…This is a place for spiritual enrichment above all. It is a place open to all. It is open to you.” Islam is part of the ‘American story of faith,’ and Muslims absolutely should be included in the cathedral’s policy of ‘open to all’ — as should Americans of any and all faiths.

There’s a story about the Crusades which applies here: Deep in “infidel” territory, a delegation of Christian soldiers was sent to Muslim leaders, to negotiate terms. They were there over a Sunday, and the Christians asked where they might observe the Sabbath. The Muslim leader graciously allowed them to use a nearby mosque. Other Muslims were outraged about the presence of the enemy in their holy place, but the Muslim leader merely said, “They’re praying. Let them be.”

Our own era is quickly approaching a level of religious animosity and bloodshed not seen since the Crusades. Those people of all faiths who believe in peace must come together and have their voices heard over the hysteria of extremists on all sides. The opening of the Washington National Cathedral’s doors for Muslim prayer seems like an excellent place to start.

The Rev. Amy Pringle
St. George’s Episcopal Church
La Cañada Flintridge

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The National Cathedral must be open to all sects of the nation. To refuse use of the cathedral by one religious group goes against what it stands for and smacks of a violation of the 1st Amendment which claims that Congress, the national legislative body, cannot limit the free exercise of religion. Further, Reverend Graham needs to look at his biblical Hebrew Dictionary. Under names of God he will find Elohim. The three main root letters of Elohim are E (Aleph), L (Lamed), and H (Hey). If you look at the Arabic for Allah, the Muslim name for the one God, you will see three root letters: A (Aleph), L (Lamed), and H (Hey). It is the same one-God word. The issue is not the name for God but how one acts in God’s name. The federal government has already acted upon “churches” it feels have used the 1st Amendment rights to commit crimes, including but not limited to violence against individuals, and sought to place their leaders in jail. Ministers are not above the law. We need to be certain that those groups wanting to make use of the National Cathedral preach and uphold the concept that all men (and women, too) “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights … life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” And that we make use of our endowed intelligence to learn all the names of the “Eternal Creator” man has given him or her.

Rabbi Mark Sobel
Temple Beth Emet
Burbank

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I am very glad to hear that the priests who are the caretakers of the Washington National Cathedral were open-minded enough to welcome Muslim worshipers and other guests into their sanctuary for a service in the name of religious unity and opposition to religious extremists of all stripes. How sad that a number of avowedly religious people, including Rev. Franklin Graham of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Assn., could only see the hospitality offered to these co-religionists as an affront to Christianity.

This building is a national cathedral in a country that is the home to people of many different religions, not just one. And those who believe that their religion is the only acceptable one are certainly not reflecting the love that was the hallmark of their namesake. Unfortunately, religious bigotry seems to be alive and well in the United States.

This event was an amazing message to people of all religious traditions about the way we can join in solidarity against the hate and violence being perpetrated by religious extremists. To quote Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” In this recent event, the leaders of the cathedral were standing up for light and love in the face of hate and darkness. And I hope that others will find a way to follow their example.

As a member of the clergy, I believe that people of faith are called to open their hearts and minds to all people of goodwill, not just those who share their particular belief systems. If we cannot do that, we are practicing the same hostility that we blame on others. And that kind of behavior is not worthy of the high ideals that are the foundation of our country.

The Rev. Dr. Betty Stapleford
Unitarian Universalist Church of the Verdugo Hills
La Crescenta

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“You shall not have other gods beside me” (Exodus 20:3). This is the very first Commandment of God’s big Ten. This is first because there are no other gods beside the biblical God, Yahweh, and this is not the god called “Allah” in the Koran and Islam. They are not one and the same, any more than real and pretend are the same, or Jesus and Mohammed are the same. They contradict all the essential tenants of one another, and unless you can simply chalk all religion up to a giant exercise in personal taste, and God to individual imagination, then you cannot possibly find this Muslim intrusion into a Protestant Christian church to be anything but tragic. I’d almost expect lightning to strike the spire in judgment, but the Washington National Cathedral is under the auspices of a very liberal denomination that has made a practice of taking unbiblical liberties in these end times. Imagine, the “Very” Reverend Gary Hall opening the doors of God’s sanctuary for Muslims to kneel toward Mecca and call upon their totally unrelated deity, all in the name of religious unity. Christians are not to be united with other religions, but we can be united in cause with individuals of different faiths when absolutely necessary. That doesn’t mean we call other gods equal, we only call other people equal, and we work for the common good of all. But after this particular service, one Muslim participant was quoted as saying, “It should be a lesson for Muslims everywhere that we and Christians are all one.” We aren’t, but that was the take-away from a church that claims allegiance to Jesus Christ, God-incarnate, who died on a cross and rose from the dead (all denied by Islam). I’m agreed with Graham.

The Rev. Bryan Griem
Montrose Community Church
Montrose